A friend who has watched the development of the pond from the first day has always accused me of presenting a fake paradise. I have staged a lot of the shots, but the preparation involved in the staging has had long term benefits. For example, from the beginning when I wanted a shot from a certain angle I would have to clean up that area and then rebuild it. Consequently I have cleaned up then rebuilt their entire backyard and the pond berm, to the point that it does look like what I made it look like in the first photos. Another criticism is that I hide or minimize the various crises that we have been confronted with, such as the oxygen inversions and resulting death of many of the larger fish. And I do that, but not to hide the fact of the event. Who wants to look at pictures of dead fish? His actual point is that the end result of these deceptive practices is a weed and garbage free, death free, fantasy world. Well okay then. I never set out to create that actual image, but I don't feel guilty if more of that comes through than say, images of a polluted hell-hole of danger and death.
I have, however, finally found something to feel guilty about. Today I know that the ordinary gopher trap causes a horrible death (was I thinking those big hooks were decoration?) for unsuspecting creatures engaged in their normal, non-malicious behavior. True, I've hunted down and killed every mouse that has entered my house, without a second thought, and they too are just engaged in the ordinary non-malicious activities of mouse life, but I don't care about the contradictions. The gopher was a pest, not my mortal enemy and for now I feel terrible about using the trap. Of course, when I find water shooting out the side of the pond that feeling will disappear but there should be another way to do this that will be easier on me.
5 pM Update:
Forget the above sentiment. I'm totally over it now. Several hours ago the gopher trap went off and since that time there has been squealing, grunting, and a tremendous struggle going on in the gopher hole. I've gone out every 30 minutes or so to see if it is dead yet because I figured that a mutilated almost dead gopher would bum me out. A few minutes ago I decided that the most cruel thing of all was to let it suffer endlessly so I didn't even listen at the hole, I just started pulling on the rope attached to the trap. Anyway, there was considerable resistance but I finally pulled the whole package out of the hole, and was shocked. A perfectly healthy, rabbit sized gopher, was holding on to the back of the trap with his enormous teeth. He blinked at me, let go, and ran back into the hole. This means war.